National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse

MINDSET

I love the word “Mindset.” It says so much to us. You can change your mindset, change it from fixed to growth. But you have to want to change, you need to feel it inside of you. Hope also is something that helps you move forward, but only if you change the mindset, and not stay in the fixed.

How many times have you thought of giving up? Many of us have thought this way, often when we are at our lowest of lows, and we feel that we just can’t go on any longer. That, is your fixed mindset talking. You have decided that you can’t grow, move forward are “stuck.” Often as survivors of abuse, we feel this way for a long time, and fall into that rut, and it is so very hard to come out from it and move forward. But we CAN’T give up says “Growth mindset.” We can’t give up on the hopes of a better tomorrow, the hopes of fulfilling our greatest potentials, to moving forward and surpassing what was.

You can choose that negative or fixed mindset or push on to that positive mindset and meet your challenges, and live to enjoy what you have missed.

We as survivors have met many challenges along our path of healing. Hope gave us the chance, gave us the courage to face the past, encouraged us to move forward in our journey from the depths of despair and face our fears. That is what a survivor does, never gives up, uses a mindset of growth to achieve what they want in life.

Hope is God’s unconditional love, helping us choose the right mindset. Just like the butterfly on their long dauntless journey, they fought hard to travel the thousands of miles to reach their final destination. They used a mindset of growth knowing that they could achieve what they set out to do. Close your eyes, envision the beautiful butterfly soaring high, exhausted, but pursuing their difficult challenges, never giving up.

Having the courage to go on, having hope, THAT gives us the will to fight, to never say ~”I CAN’T.” YES, YOU CAN!!!! We are not called survivors for nothing. God helped us get through the horrors of abuse. He has a plan for each of us, some of us still not understanding what that plan is, but you will know when the time is right. Sometimes I think that what I went through was for a reason, it was somehow meant to happen, as crazy as that sounds. But to me if it never happened, I would not be doing what I am doing now…I would not be an independent advocate for abuse. I would not be writing my poetry like I am. We can look at it in a negative (fixed mindset) or in a positive (growth mindset). The choice is yours, but I think looking at it as a positive, will help you get through your fears, get through the past that kept you trapped, and still keeps you trapped because you feel you can’t get out from under it.

Hope is a miracle that gives us a reason to live. Never ever give up, hope transcends all….As growth mindset says to fixed, “anything is possible if you believe.” Mary Graziano copyrighted 2015